I should probably point out that to this day I'm pretty sure that psychiatrist was grooming me for sex.
Goddamit! I'm sick to death of hearing shit like that. It's way too common. The world of psychiatry is at danger of being the new corrupt Catholic priest at this rate.
I can think of at least two people who are close friends who have had experiences in "therapy" with a psych so bad I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Then last year I experienced my own encounter, which, as time goes by, is even worse than i thought at the time. Nothing sex related, but what I thought was merely spectacular incompetence on his behalf now occurs to me as being potentially soemthing more sinister.
My three sessions with this guy were comical at first, because he seemed pleasantly preoccupied and forgetful of things we had talked about just minutes ago, but the whole thing changed pretty quick when he started lecturing me in a headmaster-style tone about taking diazepam. I had to remind him that HE PRESCIBED IT TO ME IN THE LAST SESSION. He had totally forgotten about it, and it was clear he didn't really care at all about who I was or why I was there.
On our first session, without having asked me anything, he pulled lithium out of thin air as a suggested course of treatment. However, he didn't prescribe it, and never mentioned it again in the following two sessions. He prescibed valium generously on the second session, then chastised me for taking it in the third (and final) session. The third session he was like a man on a mission, as well as a broken record: he was now convinced that I MUST, at all costs, without delay, get onto methadone. He would not listen to anything I said and just kept repeating, like a mantra, 'methadone, methadone'. There was simply no continuity and seemingly no logic behind his suggestions.
On the third session I realised this was not only a waste of time, but deeply offensive. I was at a dangerously low point mentally and physicaly, and I had stupidly believed that this man, with his 13 years of study and work in the field of psychiatry, might be able to help me improve my conditions. When I confronted him with his idiocy - by simply reminding him that he had been pulling random medications out of the air and not following up on them, - he very quickly showed a different side. For a minute or so he seemed defensive, like he couldn't believe that I, a lowly psycho patient, would question a great learned doctor. The doctors' arrogance showed itself briefly.
Then he calmed down, leaned back in his chair and looked at me and - I swear this is true - said: "You know, you might end up killing yourself". I stared at him in disbelief, because we'd never talked about suicide and had just a second ago being talking about why he had forgotten prescribing me valium, and then he comes out with that.
I waited for a follow up. There was none. He just started blankly. And I thought to myself: "Could this man possibly be trying, out of pure spite, to be putting ideas into my head?" It seemed too crazy, but as time goes by I can recall several comments along those lines, with no follow up or help. Passive-aggressive. Dangerous. Possibly a psychopath. That's what I thought as we sat in silence. He then said that I did NOT have any mental illness. This part blew my mind and the whole thing just unravelled from there. I am positive he was toying with me.
I asked why, on the first appointment, he had suggested that I try lithium. He had not asked me anything about my well-documented conditions. It seemed clear that he had not read my referring psychologists notes, or the GPs report. Not one question. There's severe depression running like a plague through my mother's side, and has been a defining aspect of my own life experience since as long as I can remember. There are hospital and institution records that go back 60 years telling a story of my struggle, my mother's struggle, and her mother's struggle. It's hardly a secret.
Bottom line: He didn't care, and was in fact malicious in his throw-away comments about killing myself or getting locked up for drug use and possession.
When confronted, his line was always this: "It's not like that". That's all he'd say, no reasoning or defense of his incompetence.
I do not wish to slander anyone, but this man I believe could be very dangerous - either intentionally or otherwise. PM me if anyone is concerned about a psych they have seen, or are seeing in the Collingwood/Fitzroy area. I won't name the street on here. But I've been thinking about this for the last couple of months, and I'm genuinely concerned. I'm wondering what I should do, if anything.
But I have an amazingly caring and supportive partner and brother. If I had been less stable, and I had thought that doctor was my last chance, I very well may have killed myself after that last meeting, because I left there feeling as low and worthless as I've ever felt in my life.
